THE GLACIAL HYPOTHESIS 3°3 



land, there could be no tendency toward a current. Some other cause 

 must be sought, and, fortunately, his imagination proved equal to 

 the task. 



Accepting as probable the suggestion of one whom he designates as 

 ' a writer of no common celebrity,' to the effect that the cause of the 

 general deluge was a melting of the ice at the two poles of the earth, 

 he proceeded to explain in his own way the details of the catastrophe, 

 though acknowledging that no positive testimony could possibly be 

 adduced to substantiate the fact. 



Having admitted the possibility of the earth's changing its posi- 

 tion, so that the sun would pass immediately over the two poles on 

 an unknown meridian, he showed that there would then result a rapid 

 dissolution of the existing ice-caps such as would yield an ample supply 

 of material, it being only necessary to give it direction. Considering 

 as essential to the problem only the northern hemisphere, he remarks 

 that, from this polar cap there were but two outlets, the one into the 

 Pacific through the narrow Bering Straits, and the other through the 

 wider channel between Greenland and Lapland into the Atlantic. 

 Hence, when the melting ensued, by far the larger volume of water 

 passed into the latter ocean. No sooner was this operation established 

 and this accession of strength and power thrown into the Atlantic 

 Ocean in particular, than its tide began to rise above its common limits, 

 accompanied by a consequent current, both constantly increasing, the 

 one in height and the other in rapidity. 



At the commencement of this frightful drama the current, it is 

 highly probable, was divided by the craggy heights of Spitzbergen and 

 a part thrown into the "White Sea, while the other was thrown back 

 upon the eastern and southern coast of Greenland and thence in a 

 southwestern direction until it struck the southern coast of Labrador, 

 along which it swept, through the straits of Belle Isle, across New- 

 foundland, Xova Scotia, and along the Atlantic coast into the Gulf of 

 Mexico. In a short space of time the southern and eastern coast of 

 Labrador was desolated. The soil was hurled adrift and carried across 

 the country into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and across a part of Xew 

 England into the sea or general current of the ocean. 



Continuing to rise, the waters spread across Davis Straits and rolled 

 their tumultuous surges into Hudsons Bay, embracing the whole coast 

 of Labrador, while the current of the St. Lawrence was forced back 

 and upward to its parent source. 



At length the floods of the pole, forming a junction with Baffins Bay and 

 the Arctic Sea, defying all bounds, overran their ancient limits and hurled 

 their united forces in dread confusion across the bleak regions of the north 

 to consummate the awful scene. Thus, lakes and seas uniting, formed one 

 common ocean which was propelled with inconceivable- rapidity across the con- 

 tinent between the chains of mountains, into the Gulf of Mexico, and probably 

 over the unpeopled wilds of South America into the southern ocean. Fulfilled 



